Cheek brings carnivore’s dream to Melbourne’s CBD
Mapo tofu empanadas are just one of the inauthentically delicious dishes the barbecue boys from Preston’s Dexter are serving up to great effect at their new city joint, Cheek, writes Dan Stock.
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At the business end of 2018, who knew mapo tofu would be a late contender for Melbourne’s most surprising must-include menu item?
But if two’s company and three’s a trend, then there’s a compelling case to be made.
For there it is, in all its tongue-tingling glory between two bits of bread toasted crisp in an old-school jaffle at Carlton’s Super Ling; at the recent inaugural Prahran Market Cheese Toastie invitational, Lee Ho Fook’s Victor Liong almost took out the top gong with his soy-cheese topped mapo tofu toastie.
And here it is in empanada form at Cheek, a new barbecue joint in the city from the team behind Preston’s similarly themed Dexter.
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A fat crescent of fabulously buttery, flaky pastry is filled with a properly spicy pork-and-Sichuan pepper mix studded with diced tofu.
The golden, glazed envelope comes with a sprinkle of salt flakes and spring onions atop; to the side, a house plum-and-Worstershire “bulldog” sauce that pirouettes along the sweet salty divide and delivers a sucker-punch of umami to finish this appropriating mash up that’s as inauthentic as it is delicious ($7 each).
It’s just one of the none-too-serious nods here that shows the trio behind this — Tom Peasnell and Adam Goldblatt in the kitchen, Tom’s brother Sam looking after the floor — have their tongue firmly planted in Cheek.
But that’s not to say they don’t take their food and booze seriously. While evolution remains a contentious concept in the birthplace of the US-style low-and-slow barbecue the team delivers to great effect in Preston, Cheek, though sharing similar DNA, is an evident progression, a more polished, mature offering on both sides of the pass.
Head up the steep stairs lit in pinky peach to the first floor restaurant that’s a simple room of hard surfaces and soft banquettes. A long communal table runs down the centre, a wall of backlit wine with labels as eclectic as the grape juice within the only colour brightening the monochromatic cool.
It nods to the DIY aesthetic of Dexter, though with a smarter, more refined edge, and makes the most of the huge glass cabinet where striploin and ducks hang dry ageing.
And that duck is magnificent.
With darkly roasted, chewy skin a half bird is served, a thin stratum of fat covering thick chunks of tender, textural meat with just a tickle of funky gaminess. The accompanying thick, salty smoked hoisin sauce completely addictive. It’s a power — packed plate of protein ($38) that demands something bright to the side, and a rainbow of honey-roasted beetroot served cold with a whipped buttermilk sauce, candied hazelnuts and a handful of sesame seeds counters with class ($11).
Mind you, the dirty creamed corn is reason enough to head up the stairs. A bowl of deep golden kernels comes topped with pungent dots of house-made XO, a dollop of “cream fresh” (sic) adding luscious depth ($12).
To start prawn crackers dusted in a chilli-barbecue powder are crunchy friends to a schooner of excellent Tallboy & Moose cream ale from Preston ($10), while to end, you can skip the “pre” and go straight into type 2 with the fairy bread brioche ice cream ($10), or, more sensibly finish with a bright ginger beer granita with yuzu ice cream that plays the ginger heat off the cool ice with a sharp citrus bite ($10).
It’s a welcome finale to a procession of unapologetically big, bold plates that’ll give your cardiologist a start, with the kitchen’s love of salt no more evident than in the sauce of roasted drippings served with 350g of aged Milbrook pork loin ($38). The ageing transforms the meat’s inherent sweetness into more savoury characters, the grill adding smoky char to the pink-hued loin. The pickled kohlrabi on the side tries, but doesn’t quite manage, to cut through the salty, marrow-amped sauce.
It’s one of the daily changing line-up from the ageing cabinet that will usually include a big hunk of beef — perhaps 360g of Rangers’ scotch aged for four weeks; maybe 400g of black onyx rib eye — that will demand something from that colourful wine wall that Sam out the front will be happy to talk you through.
It’s a tight list of very now producers from around the world delivering bright, acidic whites and juicy tannic reds and Sam’s passion for the product is infectious. You’ll drink wines that are interesting and delicious (the two not always synonymous) around the $12 a glass, $60 bottle mark, and while there’s ample Millennial appeal there’s genuine warmth and unaffected charm that makes dining here a pleasure for all.
Come summer, Cheek will be joined by a two-level bar called Peaches that will add yet another rooftop vista to drink in. But for now, climb those pink stairs for worldly flame-licked fare — and those empanadas.
CHEEK
1/301 Swanston St, Melbourne
Ph: 9994 8582
Open: Tues-Sat from 5pm
Go-to dish: Five-day duck
Score: 14/20
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